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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

A Thank You to the Tarrant County District Clerk, Tom Wilder and his staff

They are doing good work in preserving and making good scan copies of important, historical documents like this available to the public online. Hopefully, they will find more JFK assassination related documents.

Long-lost documents related to
assassination of President John F. Kennedy are always fascinating when they are
revealed—regardless of their association with a conspiracy.

And a 1966 casefile recently
discovered by the Tarrant County District Clerk's office proves one thing: The
State Bar of Texas hated San Francisco lawyer Melvin Belli—so much that it took
steps to ensure he could never practice in the Lone Star State's courts again
after defending Jack Ruby of murder in 1964.

The case file, State Bar of Texas
v. Belli, was discovered earlier this month by clerks who are the process
of digitizing all of county's old case files for storage purposes, said Tarrant
County District Clerk Tom Wilder. Wilder said that while most paper cases of
that vintage are eventually discarded, cases like Belli are saved for their
historical value.

"In reading the pleadings it
seemed like it was just an attempt to take a whack at Melvin Belli," Wilder
said of the case file.

The pleading, filed in May of 1966 in
Tarrant County's 96th District Court, was filed there because Belli apparently
had a case pending in that court at the time. The pleading filed by the bar's
then general counsel Davis Grant alleged that Belli was not a
"reputable" attorney and therefore should not be allowed to practice
in the court under the State Bar's rules of admission.

The source of the bar's ire,
according to the pleadings, were the numerous colorful statements Belli gave to
a hungry press after Ruby was convicted of murder for killing presidential
assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Many of the statements concerned Belli's distaste
for Texas' criminal justice system—in particular Dallas District Judge Joe B.
Brown, who presided over Ruby's trial.

Belli represented Ruby pro bono and
unsuccessfully argued to a Dallas County jury that Ruby was legally insane at
the time he shot and killed Oswald.

One of Belli's quotes, according to
the pleading, included: "I think we have a good chance in the Criminal
Court of Appeals. All Texas isn't like this place here. They're going to
chastise this kangaroo pouch judge [Brown] who sat on this case. He didn't walk
to the bench; he hopped."

Another Belli quote from the
pleading: "I don't need Judge Brown's compliments. I'm sorry I shook
hands. He has blood on it. He told me in private that he wouldn't have given
this case up for love or money."

The bar's pleading called on Belli to
answer for his statements, lest he be barred from practicing in Texas courts.
The pleading had numerous news articles featuring Belli's hot quotes filed as
attachments along with letter of support for the action from the American Bar
Association and letters from individual Texas lawyers who did not care for
Belli's behavior.

Belli was unconcerned by the
pleading. According a June 1966 letter he wrote to the judge of the 96th
District Court, Belli indicated that he no intention of returning to Texas to
face the allegations and denied that he or his law firm had any cases pending
in Texas.

"We think, in view of the ex
parte publicity given upon this same matter, my appearance in the Ruby case,
both the American Bar and the Texas Bar, I should reply in kind publicly in the
newspapers, however, I am presently constrained so to do," Belli wrote.
"This does not mean either that we are not anxious fully and publicly to
contest the subject matter of the American Bar and the Texas Bar charges [they
are both the same] or that we are loathe indefinitely to present our side to
the public."

"The letter was thumbing his
nose, saying I'm not coming back down," Wilder said of Belli, "which
is typical."

According to a marking on the file,
the bar's case against Belli was ultimately dismissed in 1968 for want of
prosecution.

The once-forgotten Belli case file
has been moved to a secure storage site, where it can be examined by permission
along with other famous Tarrant County case filed —among them the murder case
of wealthy Fort Worth oilman T. Cullen Davis—Wilder said.

"We're going to keep the
historical paper records to the extent that we can. Just the signatures have
some historically value," Wilder said. "That Belli signature would be
worth some bucks at a memorabilia store."